Colorless vs Generic mana

Some time ago when Kozilek and Mirrorpool were spoiled (18th of November?) there was a discussion about what is the diamond shaped symbol. Many players were like 'oh sixth color!'. I, on the other hand, was like 'no, it is not a sixth color, it is colorless mana'. At that time everyone was staring at me like if I was crazy. I was probably looking at others the same way as I tried to explain that this isn't a sixth color since it will most probably just be a forcing of a colorless mana. Not many people understood, actually only one person understood what I was saying - my flatmate. (Colorless Mana - {C}, Generic Mana {number})

In the end we both were right (me vs other players). Only now I came to terms with 'colorless mana' being the sixth color even though I really don't like calling colorless mana this since it is not anything new. It feels silly, the same way I feel about Devoid creatures. Yesterday I still wasn't really sure if those creatures are colorless in all zones (their color identity was obvious, but the Devoid of color was still too much for me to accept even though both Magic Online and Magic Duels treat those cards as colorless no matter what zone they are in).

There is one thing I really do not understand. Battle for Zendikar contains creatures that give colorless mana, are colorless or devoid of color thus colorless. The diamond symbol representing colorless mana was introduced in Oath to Gatewatch though. This means that we will have to deal with the colorless vs generic mana confusion quite a lot. 'Oh, I can pay Kozilek's cost with my Eldrazi Scions?' or 'Erm, Kozilek's Channeler taps for CC, right?' But maybe this is what WotC wanted - let us deal with this in such a mess so we get used to it. Later all the cards producing {C} will have the new symbol making things actually easier.

After seeing the part of WMC coverage talking about colorless mana I stared at Basalt Monolith for a while. It taps for CCC but can be untapped for 3 generic mana. To all the Magic players being used to playing some mana rocks this is pretty clear. But even I couldn't come up with an easy example how to explain how I think the colorless mana works. Here on Basalt Monolith or Grim Monolith we see both colorless mana and generic mana. The monolith give us colorless mana that can pay for CC in Kozilek, the Great Distortion's cost for example. But the Monolith can be untapped by paying any colored or colorless mana, no matter the color (or absence of it). This also leads to another thing - the fact that all the cards producing colorless mana should have errata. This means that some Battle for Zendikar cards will need errating and with 'some' I don't even count all the Eldrazi Scions one can produce during a game of limited.

So is introducing this distinction between colorless mana and generic mana good? Yes, certainly it is because in the long run it really makes sense. We are used to say colorless when we actually mean generic mana, but a newcomer might actually look at you and ask you 'Why do you call the mana colorless when you payed GGG?'. Also and that is something I welcome more is the fact that colorless cards can be designed in a different way - avoiding something that used to happen in the past. Some of you know or remember my hate towards powerful artifacts that were printed in modern magic (that means 8th edition+). For some reason I could never come to terms with those artifacts. Now after 12 years I can actually voice why I had problems with artifacts. Take for example Umezawa's Jitte. I will digress a bit. When Betrayers of Kamigawa was to be released, it was a very cold winter. Or at least in my area. My local store was about 15 km away from my place but I could cover only 12 km by public transport. The rest I had to walk across a field to reach the town where the store was located. It was early morning, snow covered the ground and it was pretty chilly. When I got off the train and saw the field in front of me I was dazed. I was used to crossing the field alone but this time it was different. I wasn't even sure if all those people I saw on the field could fit in the store. I couldn't understand what was going on. I found it out soon after I caught up with the rest of the players. I heard all of them talking about one card - Umezawa's Jitte. Nobody was interested in anything else. This card brought so many players to the local prerelease that part of us was not let in. I was one among those people. But that is not important...

Why I tell you this story? Because this shows something. It was clear that Umezawa's Jitte would be a strong card. But one of the reasons why everyone wanted the card was its cost. The card costs 2 generic mana. That means that any deck can play it. I think that many of you can clearly remember the times when all decks were running 3-4 Umezawa's Jitte's just to get rid of opponent's Jitte no matter what deck you actually played. Those were really frustrating times and it drove me crazy sometimes. Something like this should not be happening. Some cards simply should not be available to any deck.

Now imagine the very same card but costing CC or 1C instead of 2 generic mana. All this would have never happened, right? And that is the reason why I hated artifacts. There were many overpowered artifacts printed and since any deck could play them we saw those cards way too often (now I should not write about artifacts only instead I should be using 'colorless cards').

The distinction of colorless mana and generic mana will allow Wizards of the Coast to print powerful colorless cards that won't be abused by any deck (with any I mean ALL) and thus solve this problem. Only those decks that can produce true colorless mana will be able to play them. I personally think that we will see the most colorless cards like this being played in EDH because many decks simply run certain amount of rocks generating colorless mana. If a standard deck or any other will want to play the new Kozilek the deck will need to dedicate some part of its manabase or other cards to cards generating colorless mana. Some decks though already run such lands - Urza Tron is something that produces CCCCCCC. So this deck won't have problems paying for abilities or cards requiring colorless mana.

One thing I disagree with WotC is that doing this distinction will be easier for new players. Actually it is not about new players as those will most probably figure this on their own, but players playing for a longer time will have a hard time explaining this to others or grasping that themselves. After trying to explain what I think the diamond symbol is and seeing the reactions of other players I think it will be a pretty nice mess at OGW prerelease and maybe not just there. With time people will get used to it but I can see some players not being able to figure out that they can actually pay for a certain card requiring colorless mana. You don't want to know how many times I messed my deciding game because damage did not go on stack anymore or that I could win a game by just slamming Garruk on the table and putting Craterhoof Behemoth in play. I just did not realize that I can have my own copy of Garruk in play without him dying to my opponent's Garruk.

I welcome this change even though I really have NO IDEA why it had to be now and not in BFZ or Magic Origins. Maybe it is because Devoid spells are already brain teasers sometimes. It wasn't only once that someone tried to wipe my board with Ugin only to find out that all my creatures stayed in play because they were colorless.

Note: I hope I did not mess up using 'colorless' and 'generic' in this post^_^. Note: If by a chance you are wondering what happens now in EDH (Commander) if you produce a mana of the color that does not match the color of your general's identity it will produce mana of that color not colorless mana.